Aspects of the disclosure relate to providing access to map information useful for navigating vehicles. While navigating a vehicle, it may be desirable to obtain map information on the route ahead of time. This however might not be practical due to factors such as the size of the maps that need to be pre-stored in the vehicle's data storage unit, particularly in the case of high-definition (HD) maps for autonomous driving that are associated with significant amounts of data. Reliance on pre-storage of complete map information may be impractical, inflexible, and may increase the overall production cost of the vehicle, amongst other adverse considerations.
In addition, data pre-stored in the vehicle often do not include recent or live information on the frequently changing status of the route, such as variable environmental conditions. On the other hand, live data may not always be obtainable at all points in the travel route due to factors such as sporadic availability or reduced bandwidth of the network via which the vehicle communicates as it travels along the route. Exemplary embodiments of the disclosure address these problems, both individually and collectively.